Hare And Hounds Inn

The Hare and Hounds Inn, possibly originating as three houses, dates from around 1690, with a first ale license granted in 1693, undergoing substantial alterations later. The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with freestone dressings, covered by slate and double Roman tile roofs, partly crested with stacks to the left ridge and right-hand valley. The layout consists of four blocks, diminishing in height and depth from left to right.

The two-storey, attic-level front facade has a four-window arrangement. A stepped forward gable on the left features wide eaves, with a two-pane sash window to the attic, and a stone mullioned and transomed three-pane casement window to the first floor. The central block has a ridge parallel with the road. First-floor stone mullioned windows are detailed with cornices on moulded brackets; a three-light window with three panes is to the right, and a blind two-light window to the left has a similarly glazed window below, with semicircular heads to the lights covered by a grille. A gabled porch is positioned left-of-centre, featuring a 20th-century door and a hip-roofed canted bay to the right with 20th-century glazing. A smaller gabled wing to the right has decorative bargeboards to both front and rear, and stone mullioned and transomed two-light three-pane windows to the left-of-centre on both floors. The block furthest to the right is set back, with decorative bargeboards to the front and rear. The left return elevation features label moulds over cusped semicircular ornamented recesses over the two-light, three-pane first-floor windows. The centre of the ground floor has an enclosed Gothic-gabled porch with a coped parapet and Gothic glazing in a pointed arched fanlight above a Tudor arched half-glazed door. To the right is a sash window, and to the left a 20th-century conservatory. The rear garden front incorporates a circa 1920-1930 rectangular single-storey extension with a stone balustraded parapet over large stone mullioned and transomed leaded windows.

The interior has not been inspected. A license for the Hare and Hounds, in Charlecombe Parish, was first given to Jane Wait in 1693. The site was prominent, situated on the main route to Gloucester and later a turnpike. Licensees included Ambrose Hewlins in the 1750s and James Greenaway by 1767. The Lansdown family, related to the Greenaways, managed the inn in the 1770s. The building appears as "Lansdown House" on Thomas Thorpe's 1742 map and the Charlcombe tithe map of 1839, by which time outbuildings, likely stables and a brewhouse, had been added.